Benefits of Long-term Mindfulness : Wise Reflection

Enhanced Mental Abilities

It has been documented in the latest findings of Neurology that long term practitioners of Mindfulness could gain improvements in their mental and intellectual abilities. These long term practitioners were able to readily learn new subjects in spite of their advancing age. They were clearly better than the others in situations where they had to face new, unexpected life challenges, rapidly changing situations and problems. In other words, the minds of such practitioners remained agile and youthful and continued to grow, instead of declining - well into their advanced ages.

Presently the practice of Mindfulness meditation is advocated in the West from a young age in order to prevent the effects of mental and brain decline that usually happen during old age. They have found much lower incidences of senile Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease among long term practitioners of Mindfulness.

The Importance of Wisdom

Most importantly, the really long term practitioners learn to balance and correctly guide the improved mental faculties with wisdom. This happens due to a mental ability termed as ‘Wise Reflection’.

This ability could be best explained using some life examples of a long term Mindfulness practitioner.

The practitioner, a male, was driving back to Colombo from Anuradhapura. He was with his wife and as it was time for lunch he stopped at a restaurant at Kurunegala town. As he entered the restaurant, he observed the people within, the placement of furniture and the contents of the food cabinets, the lighting and the collective emotional atmosphere within the restaurant in a flash. He selected a suitable table with a view of the whole restaurant for the two of them, after purchasing the meal at the self-serving counter.

Due to the depth and the breath of awareness coupled with concentration, his mind was able to deeply read the mannerisms, gestures, subtle body languages of the occupants within seconds. Most of the customers were relaxed while a few were tensed. A young family of three were seated close by and the body language and the emotional pulse of the parents were not in harmony with each other. The young female was drawing away from the male and he was upset about that.

He noticed that most of the waiters were customer friendly and their smiles were genuine. Soon his mind started to observe the Strengths and Weaknesses of the restaurant within the context of Opportunities and Threats posed by the business environment and other restaurants of the town.

Balancing with Wisdom

All of the above took place within a few seconds. Then due to ‘Wise Reflection’, he was able to pause and check the train of thought without getting carried away by that.

A sharply honed mind of a long term Mindfulness practitioner can easily be tempted to become a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and start to be deductive. Or such a mind can even come close to what is depicted in the current CBS Network TV series ‘Limitless’ shown in the USA. In that TV series, a drug opens the full possibility of the human brain giving perfect recall of everything that is read, heard or seen together with the ability to develop countless inter-relationships and evaluations of that knowledge.

He notes that his mind was wandering and checks it through ‘Wise Reflection’. He knows that such mental activity, no matter how stimulating, could lead to countless mental proliferations and result in judgmental opinions instead of non-judgmental ones. He knows that a judgmental mind will invariably measure people and places as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on opinions. He also realises through Wise Reflection that such opinions will finally lead to the development of hate, delusion and greed.

So he brings his mind back to the present moment of awareness and feels the touch of the feet on the floor and the pressure of the seat against the buttocks. He notes the chewing and the tasting of the food and observes the very rapidly changing ‘present moment’ while being ever present to that unfolding change – ever freshly like watching a rapidly flowing river from the edge of its bank.

(About the author - Aruna Manathunge has practiced Mindfulness for over 42 years. During the past 7 years he has closely followed the development of Mind Science in the Western world. He has had a long career as the Country Head of Sri Lanka and the Head of the Indian Sub-Continent of an American Pharmaceutical Multinational company. Presently Aruna conducts Coaching in Mindfulness to Schools and Companies. Aruna can be contacted at [email protected])